Page 2 - Biggest Bubble News Today

Here are four things to be hopeful about today: First, we now have  weapons against the coronavirus. The US has two approved vaccines. England, China and Russia have developed their own. Additional vaccines are under development and will likely be available later this year. These will be game-changers if we manage to deploy them widely and quickly. Which, I admit, is a big “if.” The initial rollout has been slow almost everywhere but Israel and, surprisingly, West Virginia. West Virg...

But what if we had three hands? Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelles 1974 book, "The Mote in God’s Eye," features an alien species with three arms. It has two “normal” hands and a stronger, but less dexterous one called the “gripping hand.” The gripping hand was their most powerful alternative. This book comes to mind when I think about whats in store for 2021: • On one hand, we have some extraordinarily good reasons for optimism. • On the other hand are several potentiall...

But Biden’s wish list has one unexpected item: a $15 federal minimum wage. Labor advocates have been asking for this for years, and it’s no surprise a Democratic administration would try now. After all, the coronavirus has spread partly because so many low-wage workers have had to keep working in high-contact environments. Raising the minimum wage won’t immediately fix that problem, so Congress might reject that part. However, so far there hasn’t been much objection. Republicans s...

Together, these jolted the economy back to life. The jolt wasn’t permanent, however. The economic patient is now wavering again. This time, despite pleas from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell that  monetary policy has reached its limits, the fiscal part of the cure is not forthcoming. Ah, but “limits” don’t really apply to central bankers. Not the central bank of the world’s largest economy and issuer of the global reserve currency. The Fed has constraints—some practical, some legal...